Satsuma wrote:
Finally got round to properly staring Devil May Cry 5. It took ages for me to get interested in playing it after starting it and then playing a couple of Switch games instead, for some reason.
The sound design is great for my new soundbar. Proper bassy and designed to piss off my neighbours. But there’s some cool shit like the music in the van/shop which becomes all muffled as you transition outside and slowly fades out as you move away.
The first proper boss properly mangled me a fair few times before I eventually discovered health items hidden about the arena. It’s cool as well, because the fight is multi-tiered: it starts on top of a church then through the roof and into the church before the walls come down and it’s a fight outside on the streets. There’s some decent environmental stuff going on as well as roofs collapse, the boss rips out stone pillars to bash into your face and the ground deforms as he jump slams into the floor.
The graphics look super as well. The RE Engine seems pretty awesome if it’s pumping out this and the Resi games.
Getting real good this.
The second playable character, V, is different. Essentially you’ve got 2/3 beasts that you control concurrently that do your attacking because V is a big pussy. But because V is a self centred prick he won’t let them they finish an enemy so he has to jump in at the last minute. He’s fun to play and essentially DmC’s easy mode.
Nero from DmC4 is the main guy and since he’s only got one arm he’s got multiple fist attachments that range from whip, flying fist, big fist, shocking fist, blah blah blah essentially there’s about 10 different fists. His combos are as complex as you want to make it. And it gets complex cause you’ve got about twenty fucking buttons to press: sword, fist, gun, whip thing, jump, rev up your sword cause it’s got a handle like a motorbike, exploding fists and lock on and you’ve got to do them all at the same time.
Then you get control of Dante about 1/2 way through the game (for some reason). He’s basically the guy you control when you’ve grown enough arms that you’re legally a octopus. You’ve got two attacks - melee weapons and guns. You can hold 4 melee weapons and 4 guns which you cycle with the L2/R2 buttons. 8 fecking weapons. One melee weapon is a motorbike. A motorbike you swing around like a sword. A motorbike you swing into people’s faces and then spin the tyres in their grill. It’s great. Anyway, cycle between all the weapons often because you’ve got to get your rank up when you fight folks: D to SSS. Keep spamming the same weapon and moves and you’ll never get that S rank, you loser. But wait, you’ll also be wanting to turn into a demon every now and again to power up your moves. You can activate that with R1. But you don’t just want to swing your weapons like an amateur! No, you’ll need to vary your style. So here’s 4 styles of fighting activated on the D-pad directions. You’ll get a special move on the circle button for your trouble. Sword fighter - new sword moves; gunslinger - gun moves; Trickster - dodge real good; Royal Guard - something to do with countering. So make sure you swing that motorbike and then spin the tyres in a guy’s face, launch him, jump, smack him about, switch to gunslinger, land, swing your shotgun about like marching band twirling sticks, switch to a normal sword, dash at some other guy, poke him, switch to Royal Guard, get hit, wonder what Royal Guard actually does, switch to a rocket launcher, blast a guy in the grill. Etc.
Basically, Devil May Cry 5 is as complex as you want to make it. It’s easily the most accessible and interesting combat of all the games. If you want to get those S ranks you can finger your joypad like an too-eager 16 year old in the back of a Nissan Micra or you can just stick with what works for you and repeat until you finish the game. But it wants you to go nuts with all the stuff you’re given; play around and just experiment with what you’ve got. I really like it.